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Christmas baking
A friend of mine asked me on FB today "I know you don't really do sweets so much but i'm on a 'thinkin' about Baking Cookies' binge. Wondering if you could suggest traditional Christmas cookies or other treats from the places you've lived?" She specified that she was asking friends in quite a few different countries, in hopes of getting a good mix. Having taken the time to find some on the computer, and type in others, I thought I would post them here, too.
First the ones mom always made, that her mom also always made:
Blond Brownies
1 c. sifted flour
1/2 t b. powder
1/2 t b. soda
1/2 t salt
1/3 c. butter
1 c. brown sugar
1 egg
1 t vanilla
1/2 c. chopped nuts
1/2 c. chocolate chips
Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda & salt together. Add nuts and mix well.
Melt butter & add sugar and mix well. Cool. Add eggs & vanilla to butter/sugar and mix well.
Add flour mixture, a small amount at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add chocolate chips and turn into greased pan 9 x 9 x 2 inch. Or double the recipe and bake in a 13 x 9 x 2 inch pan
Bake at 375 F for 20-25 min.
Blond brownies were some of my favourites when I was a kid, and when I moved out of the house I used to make often myself, even when it wasn't Christmas (I only remember mom making them for Christmas). However, as I lost my sweet tooth I haven't made them in years. (Note: I never did like chocolate, so when I was a kid I picked out the chips, and when I grew up I simply "forgot" to put them in, or left them out of half the batch.)
------------------------------
Grandma’s sugar cookies
1 ½ C sugar
1 c shortening
1 c buttermilk
1 egg
½ t salt
1 t baking soda
2 t baking powder
1 vanilla
1 t nutmeg
Flour to make soft dough (3 cups?)
Mix butter and sugar, add egg, add baking powder and soda and spices, add flour. Chill. roll. cut. Bake at 375 F 10-12 min
My mom didn't make Sugar Cookies every year, since they needed decorating, but Grandma always did. I never made them myself, but my sister made them for her kids when I was there in Dec 2009. The recipe card may have said 3 cups flour, but on that occasion it needed way more than 3 cups flour to make the dough stiff enough to roll out, even with refrigeration.
The ones which came out of the oven “undercooked” (in Beth's opinion) I thought were amazingly wonderful (while I didn’t care so much for the ones which were slightly browned). I also like them much better before they are frosted.
------------------------------
Peanut Bars
First bake a hot milk sponge cake. The recipe box mom gave me has two versions:
One in Grandma's handwriting:
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
½ cup hot milk
1 ½ cu flour
1 ½ t baking powder
Pinch salt
1 t vanilla
Add salt to eggs and beat thoroughly. Add sugar gradually, beating with egg beater. Then beat in hot milk. Mix and sift flour and baking powder and stir in with spoon. Add flavouring and bake in a hot over for 20 minutes. (loaf pan)
The other in Mom's handwriting:
2 T butter
¾ c milk
3 eggs
1 ½ c sugar
1 ½ c flour
1 ½ t baking powder
1 t vanilla
Heat milk and butter until butter melts
Beat eggs & sugar
Continue beating and add flour & baking powder alternately with hot milk
Add vanilla. Bake at 350 F for 20 minutes
Either way, when the cake is cool cut into small squares, roll each in powdered sugar frosting (see below) and then coat them on all sides with chopped, roasted (but not salted) peanuts.
Powder sugar frosting: cut butter into powdered sugar until well blended, add just enough milk to make a frosting that is liquid enough to spread, but solid enough to stick to all sides of the cake and hold on the nuts. If it is too liquidy add more sugar, if it is too thick, add more milk. We never measured this one, I guess we use about 1 tablespoon of butter per cup or two of sugar? It doesn't take much milk.
Peanut Bars were my all time favourite Christmas "cookie". When I was a kid mom would buy a big bag of roasted peanuts and we spent hours peeling them and then running the nuts through the coarse blade on the meat grinder. These days I buy the unsalted, roasted peanuts and run them briefly in the food processor. I have also done them with other nuts instead of peanuts (almonds are my favourite, but I keep going back to the peanuts, as that was the classic one Grandma always made
------------------------------
Soft Molasses cookies
Cream 1 c of soft butter and ½ cup lard
Add 1 cup brown sugar and mix well
Add 2 eggs, 1 cup molasses, ¾ cup hot water, 1 t baking soda.
Add 1 t cinnamon, ½ t ginger, pinch of nutmeg, and 4 scant cups flour
Drop on greased pan and bake in moderate oven (325). Frost with powdered sugar frosting and dip top in coconut flakes
Grandma always made the molasses cookies, but I don't remember mom ever making them, and I have never tried making them. Given that they call for both lard and molasses, it says something about how old this recipe must be!
------------------------------
Christmas Wreath
The other Christmas baking grandma always did was to make a Christmas Wreath. She would mix up a sweet bread dough, roll it out, butter and coat the dough with cinnamon sugar, then roll it up, slice into rolls (1 to 1.5 cm thick), and then arrange them in a circle on a round baking pan, so that each overlapped its left hand neighbour by half a roll (one needs to pick up the left edge of the first one that was put down to get its left hand neighbour under it, once one has worked the rest of the way around the circle. After letting it rise and bake she frosted the wreath with powdered sugar frosting (see above, but make it a bit runnier than for Peanut Bars), and decorated it with cut red and green dried fruit (the horrid fake coloured stuff they sell for holiday baking) to look like holly bits etc. on the wreath. They were always pretty.
------------------------------
Now on to the ones I have picked up in my travels:
------------------------------
First one of my favourites, from Eugene Oregon, from some SCA friends (Marion and Raven)
Ginger Cookies
1 C Butter
¾ C Brown Sugar
1 C Minced Candied Ginger
1 t Chinese Five-Spice Powder
1 t Powdered Ginger
2 C Flour
Cream butter and sugar. Mix minced candied ginger, Chinese five-spice powder, and powdered ginger. Add flour. Roll dough in one-inch balls. Dip half of each ball into water and then into a bowl of white sugar mixed with some 5-spice powder. Place on un-greased cookie sheet, sugar-side up. Bake in 375o degree oven 10-12 minutes till golden brown. Cool on wire rack.
------------------------------
This next one is from my sister's travels--from when she was an exchange student in Finland--her host family made these, and I am told they are common throughout Finland:
Joulutorttu (Christmas Tarts)
The pastry:
2 cups white flour
1/3 cup cold water
1 cup soft butter
Place 1 cup of flour in a small bowl and gradually add the water, tossing the mixture with a fork until it gathers into a ball. Smooth the dough out with your hands. Place in the refrigerator and let chill until cold.
In another bowl, cream the butter. Add the remaining cup of flour gradually, stirring well until the dough is smooth. Chill this too until cold. (At least 1 hour.)
Roll out the flour-water dough on a lightly floured board into a rectangle about 12 by 16 inches. Remove the flour-butter dough from the fridge and roll it into the same size rectangle. Place the butter dough on top of the flour-water dough. Fold the top third of the doughs down over the center and roll lightly to about ½ inch thickness. Turn the dough around and repeat the folding rolling process until both doughs are completely blended.
The Filling:
1 pound dried prunes
½ cup sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
Cook the prunes in water until soft. Drain and puree. Add the sugar and lemon juice; mix well.
Assembling:
Roll the dough into a large (about 20 inch) square, ¼ inch thick, keeping the corners squared.
Cut the pastry into 3-inch squares and place a small mound of filling in the center of each square. Split each corner from the top to w/in ½ inch from the center (as for making pinwheels). Fold one half of each corner of the square to the center, thus forming a star. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Let stand for 10 minutes at room temperature before baking. Bake at 400 F for 7 to 10 minutes or until a very light golden brown. Makes about 24.
Note that this Finnish pastry recipe is one that I use for savory baking too. It is great with a spinach-ricotta filling, for example.
------------------------------
The next one I call "St. Gildas Biscuits", because I got the recipe from some of the students in the SCA college of St. Gildas (University of Tasmania). I think that they just called them "Vanilla Biscuits" They can be cut into shapes and frosted and decorated, like sugar cookies, but I like them best dusted with cinnamon. I still make them often, and they are the most requested cookie from David.
St. Gildas Biscuits
½ cup butter
½ cup sugar
¼ tsp vanilla
1 egg
2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
egg or milk for glazing
pinch salt
Preheat oven to 160ºC.
Cream butter sugar and vanilla. Beat egg and add. Add sifted flour and baking powder. knead lightly. Roll out part of the mixture at a time, keeping remainder cool. Cut shapes. Put onto greased pan Glaze with a little egg or milk, dust with cinnamon or Place a piece of cherry or almond on each. Bake 10 minutes to pale gold.
------------------------------
Here is another really yummy Australian cookie. Crian's mum makes them for Christmas:
Melting Moments
Cookie:
250 g butter, cubed
55 g icing sugar, sifted (what we call powdered sugar, about 1/3 cup)
1 tsp vanilla
260 g flour (about 1 ¾ cup)
50 g cornflour (what we Americans call cornstarch, about 1/3 cup)
Beat butter and sugar, add vanilla.
Sift flour and cornflour and add to butter mix to just make a soft dough
Roll small balls flatten with a fork on paper-covered baking tray
Bake 15 minutes at 160 C
Filling:
60 g butter (about 3 table spoons)
1 t vanilla
Grated orange rind
110 g icing sugar (about 2/3 cups)
Beat butter, vanilla, and orange rind soft and fluffy, add sugar, spread as filling between two biscuits.
------------------------------
Here is one I invented while I was living in Australia, because one of our friends was gluten intolerant. These are so yummy I still make them often, even when I have no gluten intolerant people to help me eat them:
Gluten-free almond & coconut biscuits
50 grams butter (about 1/4 cup)
¼ cup caster sugar*
pinch salt
1 medium egg
1 ¼ cups almond meal
¼ cup rice flour
½ cup fine shredded coconut
Cream the butter and sugar, add the egg and salt and beat well, beat in half of the almond meal, then beat in the rice flour, and add remaining almond meal a bit at a time followed by the coconut, stopping at a very soft dough. Roll into balls and bake on ungreased cookie sheet at 150 C for 7 to 10 minutes.
*Caster sugar is a fine-grained, but still crystal cubic sugar that they have in Australia. If one doesn't have it available locally any normal white sugar will do, even if it is coarser.
------------------------------
And from Sweden, THE classic Christmas cookie that everyone eats here, and all of the stores carry many varieties of store-bought versions:
Pepparkakor (literally “pepper-cookies”)
Ingredienser:
300 g smör (butter)
5 dl strösocker (white sugar)
1 dl ljus sirap (literally "light syrup"*)
1 msk malen ingefära (ground ginger)
2 msk malen kanel (ground cinnamon)
1 msk malda nejlikor (ground cloves)
2 tsk malen kardemumma (ground cardamon)
1 msk bikarbonat (baking soda)
2 dl vatten (water)
15 dl vetemjöl (white wheat flour)
Blend soft butter with sugar, add syrup and blend. Add the spices (I usually also add nutmeg and pepper, and even grains of paradise if I have them, even though it isn’t standard here, and also tend to be even more generous with the amounts of spices, as do many other Swedes) and baking soad. Add the water. Add the flour. Chill in the fridge 24 hours or more. Take out a bit of dough at a time from the fridge, roll it out thin and cut pretty shapes (hearts and stars are common, moose and santa, etc, are also done. Some people roll them really, really thin, and get very crisp cookies, others leave them ¼ in thick, for a semi-crisp cookie. Bake at 200-225 C for 4 to 5 minutes. This dough also works very well for gingerbread houses etc.
*If you don't have ljus sirap locally try substituting treacle, or light corn syrup (not the same; ljus sirap is made from sugar beets) or light molasses.
------------------------------
My all-time favourite Christmas food, ever, is the Swedish Risalmalta. A desert, not a cookie, but it is the gift of the gods, so I will share on this list anyway.
Risalmalta
First slow-cook rice in way more milk than you think it should be able to absorb to make a rich yummy rice pudding. David’s family does this by starting the rice in a small amount of water on the stove top, in a big, oven-safe pot. As soon as it comes to a boil they add the milk and move the pot to an oven at 150 C and let it cook there, stirring occasionally, and adding more milk as needed. In Sweden they sell “grötris” (porridge-rice) especially for this sort of rice porridge—it is a short grain rice that takes lots of liquid—three times or more as much milk as rice is typical, but if you don’t have it locally sushi rice will do). Don't add any sugar, it doesn't need it.
They traditionally eat this pudding for breakfast on the morning of “Julafton” (Christmas Eve) --they add sugar and cinnamon in the bowl, but I eat it just as it comes out of the pot. But they always make WAY more rice porridge than is needed for breakfast, so that there is plenty for the next step:
Set the rice pudding aside to cool for some hours (in the fridge once it is cool enough to put there, or outside if you are blessed with nice cold weather).
They have their big holiday dinner in the afternoon of Christmas Eve, so when they are done with the main meal, when it is nearly time for desert, they whip lots of cream and blend it with the cooled rice pudding (about half cream-half pudding). The result is wonderfully fluffy and rich. They serve it with berries. Most years there are several types to choose from, such as raspberry, strawberry, and hjortron (cloudberry) (all of which had been mashed while fresh and then frozen, and thawed for the occasion).
------------------------------
Of course, having typed all this up I now feel like it would be good to bake something this week. I hope that someone comes over for my birthday fika next Sunday to eat whatever I wind up making...
First the ones mom always made, that her mom also always made:
Blond Brownies
1 c. sifted flour
1/2 t b. powder
1/2 t b. soda
1/2 t salt
1/3 c. butter
1 c. brown sugar
1 egg
1 t vanilla
1/2 c. chopped nuts
1/2 c. chocolate chips
Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda & salt together. Add nuts and mix well.
Melt butter & add sugar and mix well. Cool. Add eggs & vanilla to butter/sugar and mix well.
Add flour mixture, a small amount at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add chocolate chips and turn into greased pan 9 x 9 x 2 inch. Or double the recipe and bake in a 13 x 9 x 2 inch pan
Bake at 375 F for 20-25 min.
Blond brownies were some of my favourites when I was a kid, and when I moved out of the house I used to make often myself, even when it wasn't Christmas (I only remember mom making them for Christmas). However, as I lost my sweet tooth I haven't made them in years. (Note: I never did like chocolate, so when I was a kid I picked out the chips, and when I grew up I simply "forgot" to put them in, or left them out of half the batch.)
------------------------------
Grandma’s sugar cookies
1 ½ C sugar
1 c shortening
1 c buttermilk
1 egg
½ t salt
1 t baking soda
2 t baking powder
1 vanilla
1 t nutmeg
Flour to make soft dough (3 cups?)
Mix butter and sugar, add egg, add baking powder and soda and spices, add flour. Chill. roll. cut. Bake at 375 F 10-12 min
My mom didn't make Sugar Cookies every year, since they needed decorating, but Grandma always did. I never made them myself, but my sister made them for her kids when I was there in Dec 2009. The recipe card may have said 3 cups flour, but on that occasion it needed way more than 3 cups flour to make the dough stiff enough to roll out, even with refrigeration.
The ones which came out of the oven “undercooked” (in Beth's opinion) I thought were amazingly wonderful (while I didn’t care so much for the ones which were slightly browned). I also like them much better before they are frosted.
------------------------------
Peanut Bars
First bake a hot milk sponge cake. The recipe box mom gave me has two versions:
One in Grandma's handwriting:
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
½ cup hot milk
1 ½ cu flour
1 ½ t baking powder
Pinch salt
1 t vanilla
Add salt to eggs and beat thoroughly. Add sugar gradually, beating with egg beater. Then beat in hot milk. Mix and sift flour and baking powder and stir in with spoon. Add flavouring and bake in a hot over for 20 minutes. (loaf pan)
The other in Mom's handwriting:
2 T butter
¾ c milk
3 eggs
1 ½ c sugar
1 ½ c flour
1 ½ t baking powder
1 t vanilla
Heat milk and butter until butter melts
Beat eggs & sugar
Continue beating and add flour & baking powder alternately with hot milk
Add vanilla. Bake at 350 F for 20 minutes
Either way, when the cake is cool cut into small squares, roll each in powdered sugar frosting (see below) and then coat them on all sides with chopped, roasted (but not salted) peanuts.
Powder sugar frosting: cut butter into powdered sugar until well blended, add just enough milk to make a frosting that is liquid enough to spread, but solid enough to stick to all sides of the cake and hold on the nuts. If it is too liquidy add more sugar, if it is too thick, add more milk. We never measured this one, I guess we use about 1 tablespoon of butter per cup or two of sugar? It doesn't take much milk.
Peanut Bars were my all time favourite Christmas "cookie". When I was a kid mom would buy a big bag of roasted peanuts and we spent hours peeling them and then running the nuts through the coarse blade on the meat grinder. These days I buy the unsalted, roasted peanuts and run them briefly in the food processor. I have also done them with other nuts instead of peanuts (almonds are my favourite, but I keep going back to the peanuts, as that was the classic one Grandma always made
------------------------------
Soft Molasses cookies
Cream 1 c of soft butter and ½ cup lard
Add 1 cup brown sugar and mix well
Add 2 eggs, 1 cup molasses, ¾ cup hot water, 1 t baking soda.
Add 1 t cinnamon, ½ t ginger, pinch of nutmeg, and 4 scant cups flour
Drop on greased pan and bake in moderate oven (325). Frost with powdered sugar frosting and dip top in coconut flakes
Grandma always made the molasses cookies, but I don't remember mom ever making them, and I have never tried making them. Given that they call for both lard and molasses, it says something about how old this recipe must be!
------------------------------
Christmas Wreath
The other Christmas baking grandma always did was to make a Christmas Wreath. She would mix up a sweet bread dough, roll it out, butter and coat the dough with cinnamon sugar, then roll it up, slice into rolls (1 to 1.5 cm thick), and then arrange them in a circle on a round baking pan, so that each overlapped its left hand neighbour by half a roll (one needs to pick up the left edge of the first one that was put down to get its left hand neighbour under it, once one has worked the rest of the way around the circle. After letting it rise and bake she frosted the wreath with powdered sugar frosting (see above, but make it a bit runnier than for Peanut Bars), and decorated it with cut red and green dried fruit (the horrid fake coloured stuff they sell for holiday baking) to look like holly bits etc. on the wreath. They were always pretty.
------------------------------
Now on to the ones I have picked up in my travels:
------------------------------
First one of my favourites, from Eugene Oregon, from some SCA friends (Marion and Raven)
Ginger Cookies
1 C Butter
¾ C Brown Sugar
1 C Minced Candied Ginger
1 t Chinese Five-Spice Powder
1 t Powdered Ginger
2 C Flour
Cream butter and sugar. Mix minced candied ginger, Chinese five-spice powder, and powdered ginger. Add flour. Roll dough in one-inch balls. Dip half of each ball into water and then into a bowl of white sugar mixed with some 5-spice powder. Place on un-greased cookie sheet, sugar-side up. Bake in 375o degree oven 10-12 minutes till golden brown. Cool on wire rack.
------------------------------
This next one is from my sister's travels--from when she was an exchange student in Finland--her host family made these, and I am told they are common throughout Finland:
Joulutorttu (Christmas Tarts)
The pastry:
2 cups white flour
1/3 cup cold water
1 cup soft butter
Place 1 cup of flour in a small bowl and gradually add the water, tossing the mixture with a fork until it gathers into a ball. Smooth the dough out with your hands. Place in the refrigerator and let chill until cold.
In another bowl, cream the butter. Add the remaining cup of flour gradually, stirring well until the dough is smooth. Chill this too until cold. (At least 1 hour.)
Roll out the flour-water dough on a lightly floured board into a rectangle about 12 by 16 inches. Remove the flour-butter dough from the fridge and roll it into the same size rectangle. Place the butter dough on top of the flour-water dough. Fold the top third of the doughs down over the center and roll lightly to about ½ inch thickness. Turn the dough around and repeat the folding rolling process until both doughs are completely blended.
The Filling:
1 pound dried prunes
½ cup sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
Cook the prunes in water until soft. Drain and puree. Add the sugar and lemon juice; mix well.
Assembling:
Roll the dough into a large (about 20 inch) square, ¼ inch thick, keeping the corners squared.
Cut the pastry into 3-inch squares and place a small mound of filling in the center of each square. Split each corner from the top to w/in ½ inch from the center (as for making pinwheels). Fold one half of each corner of the square to the center, thus forming a star. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Let stand for 10 minutes at room temperature before baking. Bake at 400 F for 7 to 10 minutes or until a very light golden brown. Makes about 24.
Note that this Finnish pastry recipe is one that I use for savory baking too. It is great with a spinach-ricotta filling, for example.
------------------------------
The next one I call "St. Gildas Biscuits", because I got the recipe from some of the students in the SCA college of St. Gildas (University of Tasmania). I think that they just called them "Vanilla Biscuits" They can be cut into shapes and frosted and decorated, like sugar cookies, but I like them best dusted with cinnamon. I still make them often, and they are the most requested cookie from David.
St. Gildas Biscuits
½ cup butter
½ cup sugar
¼ tsp vanilla
1 egg
2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
egg or milk for glazing
pinch salt
Preheat oven to 160ºC.
Cream butter sugar and vanilla. Beat egg and add. Add sifted flour and baking powder. knead lightly. Roll out part of the mixture at a time, keeping remainder cool. Cut shapes. Put onto greased pan Glaze with a little egg or milk, dust with cinnamon or Place a piece of cherry or almond on each. Bake 10 minutes to pale gold.
------------------------------
Here is another really yummy Australian cookie. Crian's mum makes them for Christmas:
Melting Moments
Cookie:
250 g butter, cubed
55 g icing sugar, sifted (what we call powdered sugar, about 1/3 cup)
1 tsp vanilla
260 g flour (about 1 ¾ cup)
50 g cornflour (what we Americans call cornstarch, about 1/3 cup)
Beat butter and sugar, add vanilla.
Sift flour and cornflour and add to butter mix to just make a soft dough
Roll small balls flatten with a fork on paper-covered baking tray
Bake 15 minutes at 160 C
Filling:
60 g butter (about 3 table spoons)
1 t vanilla
Grated orange rind
110 g icing sugar (about 2/3 cups)
Beat butter, vanilla, and orange rind soft and fluffy, add sugar, spread as filling between two biscuits.
------------------------------
Here is one I invented while I was living in Australia, because one of our friends was gluten intolerant. These are so yummy I still make them often, even when I have no gluten intolerant people to help me eat them:
Gluten-free almond & coconut biscuits
50 grams butter (about 1/4 cup)
¼ cup caster sugar*
pinch salt
1 medium egg
1 ¼ cups almond meal
¼ cup rice flour
½ cup fine shredded coconut
Cream the butter and sugar, add the egg and salt and beat well, beat in half of the almond meal, then beat in the rice flour, and add remaining almond meal a bit at a time followed by the coconut, stopping at a very soft dough. Roll into balls and bake on ungreased cookie sheet at 150 C for 7 to 10 minutes.
*Caster sugar is a fine-grained, but still crystal cubic sugar that they have in Australia. If one doesn't have it available locally any normal white sugar will do, even if it is coarser.
------------------------------
And from Sweden, THE classic Christmas cookie that everyone eats here, and all of the stores carry many varieties of store-bought versions:
Pepparkakor (literally “pepper-cookies”)
Ingredienser:
300 g smör (butter)
5 dl strösocker (white sugar)
1 dl ljus sirap (literally "light syrup"*)
1 msk malen ingefära (ground ginger)
2 msk malen kanel (ground cinnamon)
1 msk malda nejlikor (ground cloves)
2 tsk malen kardemumma (ground cardamon)
1 msk bikarbonat (baking soda)
2 dl vatten (water)
15 dl vetemjöl (white wheat flour)
Blend soft butter with sugar, add syrup and blend. Add the spices (I usually also add nutmeg and pepper, and even grains of paradise if I have them, even though it isn’t standard here, and also tend to be even more generous with the amounts of spices, as do many other Swedes) and baking soad. Add the water. Add the flour. Chill in the fridge 24 hours or more. Take out a bit of dough at a time from the fridge, roll it out thin and cut pretty shapes (hearts and stars are common, moose and santa, etc, are also done. Some people roll them really, really thin, and get very crisp cookies, others leave them ¼ in thick, for a semi-crisp cookie. Bake at 200-225 C for 4 to 5 minutes. This dough also works very well for gingerbread houses etc.
*If you don't have ljus sirap locally try substituting treacle, or light corn syrup (not the same; ljus sirap is made from sugar beets) or light molasses.
------------------------------
My all-time favourite Christmas food, ever, is the Swedish Risalmalta. A desert, not a cookie, but it is the gift of the gods, so I will share on this list anyway.
Risalmalta
First slow-cook rice in way more milk than you think it should be able to absorb to make a rich yummy rice pudding. David’s family does this by starting the rice in a small amount of water on the stove top, in a big, oven-safe pot. As soon as it comes to a boil they add the milk and move the pot to an oven at 150 C and let it cook there, stirring occasionally, and adding more milk as needed. In Sweden they sell “grötris” (porridge-rice) especially for this sort of rice porridge—it is a short grain rice that takes lots of liquid—three times or more as much milk as rice is typical, but if you don’t have it locally sushi rice will do). Don't add any sugar, it doesn't need it.
They traditionally eat this pudding for breakfast on the morning of “Julafton” (Christmas Eve) --they add sugar and cinnamon in the bowl, but I eat it just as it comes out of the pot. But they always make WAY more rice porridge than is needed for breakfast, so that there is plenty for the next step:
Set the rice pudding aside to cool for some hours (in the fridge once it is cool enough to put there, or outside if you are blessed with nice cold weather).
They have their big holiday dinner in the afternoon of Christmas Eve, so when they are done with the main meal, when it is nearly time for desert, they whip lots of cream and blend it with the cooled rice pudding (about half cream-half pudding). The result is wonderfully fluffy and rich. They serve it with berries. Most years there are several types to choose from, such as raspberry, strawberry, and hjortron (cloudberry) (all of which had been mashed while fresh and then frozen, and thawed for the occasion).
------------------------------
Of course, having typed all this up I now feel like it would be good to bake something this week. I hope that someone comes over for my birthday fika next Sunday to eat whatever I wind up making...
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